Tonex Tips

andy_k

Just going to do my usual long preamble, to a no doubt divisive thread.
Feel free to use AI to summarise at this point.
Don't think I have seen another product that has such mixed reviews, and I haven't even received mine yet, ordered 8 Oct on Amazon for £250, with delivery slated for 31 Oct, since revised for - Friday??
I am amazed that so many people are struggling with it- enough to be returning them so rapidly, even though there is a fairly massive update coming pretty soon which will possibly remove the need for even more stuff on the pedalboard.

The point of this thread is to maybe have a few 'tips', or pointers to getting the thing working, at least, and to maybe help some people make an informed decision going forward.
In my case, I am always looking for something to make it as easy as possible to get past the tone seeking part of picking up my guitar, to allow me to concentrate on ideas for recording, and a lot of time I don't even plug in.
I have spent a fair few years getting to know how different kinds of guitars sound acoustically, experimenting with different woods, pickups, neck profiles etc etc, to get to the point where I have a couple of things that I just pick up and play without needing to plug in, and I have gone down many rabbit holes to find the things I want when I do actually play amplified.

Bare in mind, at this point I am only talking about the act of playing at home, for my own amusement with the aim of coming up with something that might get recorded, and will then be adjusted, abused or mixed into some crude form of a demo.

Amps are designed to be loud - how loud depends on how loud we can get away with, and for some people it isn't an issue to use a 20-50-100 watt amp to its potential, and a lot of the sounds we think we like are these loud types of amps being played in their sweet spots.
In some regards, pedals were originally invented to allow the higher gain sounds be achieved at lower volumes, and amp designs followed with channel switching and master volumes, but usually they were still high volume beasts that then needed attenuation, and eventually load boxes and IR's to allow them to be used at full potential in small spaces ( studios, and now silent stages)

In the last few years, with digital modelling, we can get very similar results on a laptop, with software and a good set of headphones, so we have come a long way indeed.
I have an active interest in recording, and have seen the prices of entry to professional results falling to almost nothing, at least as far as software goes, so when a piece of hardware comes along that offers as much potential as the Tonex pedals I find it hard to resist.
The £250 I paid for the pedal, includes licenses for 2 separate pieces of £99 software, Amplitube and Tonex, which I don't currently own although I do already use the free NAM platform, and also have Overloud THU via a Slate subscription, and also all the 2Notes IR stuff that comes with a Torpedo, including Genome, so I am no stranger to amp sims in a recording situation.

I'm not a massive fan of using headphones, so the idea of being able to access a lot of high gain, or high fidelity amps, at a low volume is very appealing to me, and I can understand that what is on offer, is the sound of a recorded amp - not necessarily the actual sound of the amp, and there is a difference.
I appreciate there is a lot of different applications for this kind of device, live, recording and home, so anything that can be used in all these situations is pretty attractive- especially if it is affordable.
The Nano cortex seemed to fit the bill, but to me at least, was around £200-300 too expensive, and relied on a phone app, and the Kemper has always been out of my reach, before they announced the tiered payments to unlock the player.

Anyhoo, I could go on ( and on-and on )
But I won't, my first tip would be, decide what you actually, want and do as much research as you can before you buy anything.
I was lucky to be able to get the Tonex at £250, and have used the time it is taking to get it delivered to see what it actually represents, an entry point to a new ecosystem of digital modelling of desirable amps and sounds.
I will follow up here, with my own honest experience of installing the software, and my first impressions, and I welcome any constructive advise, I am aware of the reputation that Amalgam captures have, but am also keen to see what is already available in the Tonex suite-before I decide exactly what it lacks.
To be continued......

 

Basher

Tonex software only user here. Got it cheap with an Amplitube upgrade and was blown away. The software, while not exactly intuitive, isn't particularly tricky so I suspect something must be amiss in the interface twixt hardware and it.
Cheap as billy-o and sounds great. Modulation and delay additions imminent. What's not to like?

Arjailer

Pretty sure they're expecting it to be like a "traditional" modern multi-effects editor (like Helix Edit). But it's not that (yet, anyway) so they're throwing their hands up and giving up.

It's not actually difficult if you accept it for what it is (a software modeller first, with hardware support tagged on later) and spend a bit of time learning it's (currently somewhat esoteric) workflow.

And it sounds frigging great once you've worked it out and found some good captures.

But I totally get that some people would rather just spend the extra money and buy something that's simpler to use.

dangriffiths

I’ve stopped trying to help tbh! It’s not a nice bit of software but it sounds good and unless you want to be constantly tinkering you only need it setup the once. I’ve tried em all and it is the best for my ears and works well with real pedals (including drives). 

Appreciate some people aren’t that tech but it isn’t that involved when you think about it compared to learning Kemper or Fractal etc. 

I will say though the stock stuff isn’t anywhere near the Amalgam captures so it prob skews people. 

rickd2112a

I think this is a good idea. If this can be a guideline to get things up and running that would help people.
I actually found installing and running the software quite straightforward, but I had spent a little time beforehand reading the manual and watching a few YT software walkthroughs.
So I would start there, read the manual before doing anything > load IK Product Manager > Register the pedal in Product Manager > Download Tonex Max from in the Manager and then install it as per normal.

thecolourbox

My Top Tips

I've found with any multi-preset type unit, my best port of call to start with is to just go through each preset on the unit and make a note of the ones I do like, so when I come to adding or creating my own, I know which ones are safe to overwrite and I won't miss them.

The Favourites function in the software is very good for that purpose as well, it keeps the ones you've liked in a neat folder. I have a favourites folder, an Amalgam folder, and I'm working on a Signature folder for when I come up with presets which represent what I think of as a signature type of sound for somebody I like.

In the software, there are wayyy too many to audition one by one I think. Therefore I always sort by the name of the amp the preset is based on so I can skip the amps I'm probably not too interested in. 

Worth learning the button-press order for changing the unit between Live and Interface mode (and not forgetting to switch it back again), and making sure in interface mode that you press whichever footswitch is lit up, so that it's bypassed and therefore you can use the presets in the software with just your guitar tone. For whatever reason they don't seem to sound quite the same in the software vs on the pedal but that could just be my ears.

Having the reverb (and soon to have delay and modulation) is nice however I find it's really limited on what you can edit on the pedal with the reverb as it is, so I tend not to use it at all. At some point I'd like to go through my nailed on favourite presets and add at least a basic room reverb for when I play through headphones.

It sounds annoying how everybody just says "get the Amalgam captures" but they really are decent and you get a good array of the sounds from the amps. They have free samples on the ToneNet so I pretty much just grabbed all of those and auditioned them the same as I did with the pedal factory presets. 

ToneNet is a massive rabbit hole and you've really no idea which ones are going to be good - you can't sort by rating or number of downloads, but that doesn't really matter as I've found in general that it's the ones which are based on popular artists are the ones with the highest download numbers and highest ratings, purely because more people search for John Mayer, Jimi, etc rather than some of the less ubiquitous amps etc. So I'd probably leave the ToneNet for a while other than grabbing the free Amalgam ones, as generally people want to avoid the rabbit hole.

Lots of people complain about the software but then say they couldn't be arsed to read the manual or watch some videos showing you what to do. The software is a bit odd but if people aren't bothering to actually look at how others have managed to use it, then that's at least as much on them as it is on the software. I find HX Edit and Helix Native just as frustrating for different reasons.

I like the idea of specific capture settings on an amp as usually they are done to be a generally good sound, whereas my knowledge of the actual amps is minimal so when I use the Helix ones I just keep fiddling with the millions of parameters and wondering why stuff doesn't quite sound right. I sometimes edit the gain level on the pedal but that's about it.

andy_k

These are all excellent responses, and we already have a few good tips to consider.
I am quite curious as to what makes the Amalgam captures so highly rated really, has he simply got the best examples of each amp, and has he  (they?) arrived at some default setting that just makes everything sound good?
Maybe, I doubt it though.
I still don't have mine in hand ( now just says tomorrow-before 8pm ) but I have read through the manual, and have had a close look at the 1100 presets that come with Tonex max, there seem to be plenty in there that come close to what I am looking for, so I have highlighted a fair few.
I have also watched a few of the most popular videos of how to best set up the pedal, and it seems that there have been a few strange choices made for default settings in the original pedal, ie, the global input gain is set at +8.5, which does not correspond well to the software, and may also be incompatible with somebody who is using a third party IO, This is something I will investigate further.
There is also the issue of being unable to live preview edits made in the software via the pedal, and this just involves some extra steps in the work flow, also this is something that is going to be addressed in a future update.
I am sure the impending update which introduces modulation and delay into the software, and amazingly, into the saved presets on the pedal, will alter some peoples understanding of how they use the pedal.
I have been thinking about how I will actually use the pedal, in the main, and this will probably involve some sort of power amp, into a small cab for home use, and I have been doing a few experiments with a cheap headphone amp, into a variety of cabs.
I think this is where some of the confusion lies with this kind of device - digital models of full amp rigs, with headphone and line outs, in general.
It is clear from the preset list that there are a few varieties of presets available, ranging from a single pedal capture, pedal into amp, -pedal, amp, cab, ( which will involve an IR ), and also pedal, amp,cab, multi mic, and mic preamp, so there are things here that cannot be easily A/B tested against each other.
One option, is to just use headphones, and this is fine, but does feel a bit unnatural to me and uncomfortable over time, but I will be previewing stuff this way at first, using a pair of Koss Utility, which are pretty amazing really.
Another option, is to play via the power section and cab of another amp, which will mean any included IRs need to be turned off, and then all volume will be done on the pedal master volume. This is probably overkill for me at home, and I have also considered using my Tascam mixer into Ilouds, which will probably sound awesome - but involve 2 more power outlets, and a bit of level matching.
I'd like to show an example of what I have done with a small battery powered Bluetooth headphone amp, into a guitar cab, which seems to be just about perfect volume for home use, and I think will be perfectly good for using the Tonex pedal at home.
I realise, the cab I am using is a guitar cab, and not FRFR, but I am not asking it to reproduce anything that is outside the range of guitar anyway.
Another option, would be to use a line in on something like a Bluetooth speaker, which is probably closer to FRFR, although the one I have is a little too small for the purpose - could be an option for anyone who has one of the larger party box type things - after all, the model we are listening to is a capture of a recorded amp, ie-the sound we might hear on a recording, and not really the sound of the amp itself.
I did my testing here with 'Holy Diver' by Paul Gilbert, played via the BT on my phone, and the guitars sounded great.
I know this sounds a bit confusing for some, and it is to me too sometimes, but as soon as a mic is mentioned in the capture, ie an IR, I remember we are hearing the sound of a recording, via another amp and speaker combination - a lot of variables.

rickd2112a

@andy_k ;;

I planned to use it with headphones and into the FX return of my small Friedman combo. I only play at home so this would work fine.

In one of the videos I saw, the guy was using it in a studio into a Yamaha powered speaker, sounded really good.

Littlejonny

I've had the Tonex One for a couple of weeks. It's definitely not plug-and-play. I'm still realising stuff every day I have a play with it. I really think the software is bewildering and needs rethinking completely. For example it has 2 modes that look similar (Home and Librarian) and within each mode there's Home and Tonenet. Then there's 'liked' which applies to Tonenet and 'favourites' which refers to Home. Then there's Librarian, which is kind of a combination of the two, but allows you to drag and drop into a tiny window of your 20 stored presets, except when you're trying to drop them in, they move around and you accidentally overwrite the wrong preset. Also, you seem to be able to modify presets before you drop them onto the hardware, but not after, unless you you did what I did today and somehow it reverted to the original unmodified sound when I had dragged it on...it's not impossible, but it's sure frustrating and could be so much easier. 

Sound quality should be very transparent, ie barely distinguishable from the original source.

I was excited to find out there is a global cabinet bypass mode on the pedal, and did this to plug into the power amp of my Hot Rod. Unfortunately, all the driven sounds are quite fizzy this way and sound like they need a level of high end taking off, but that could be my Celestion A Type speaker. 

I'm certainly getting good results through my Bose S1 and also the drive and fuzz pedal models sound brilliant through the front end of my amp. At the very least, I could load up a tonne of drive pedals and use it that way.

I'm also very impressed by the reverb. I don't use much compression and I never use noise gate, so I can't comment on those. It seems to take pedals in front like a normal amp.

andy_k

This will be relevant later-- 


As will this----

andy_k

My Amazon delivery finally arrived at 6-15 last night, so I spent a few hours getting things running, here's a brief review so far.
First impressions on the hardware are as expected, very well built, very neat, slightly bigger than I expected, but feels solid.
First steps - registering via IK manager went fine, list of available software was populated with expected stuff, plus a couple of bonus packs, nice.
Installaion of Tonex and Amplitube went fine, also noticed there were a lot of packs to add to Amplitube which just seemed to DL as zips.
Checked hardware tab, which showed a couple of Asio drivers, also DL.
Looked in my DL folder, and nothing was there-so slightly confused.
Next step - Launch Tonex software, which is only located in my full list of Windows software - so no shortcut made at install.
Spent a few minutes getting registered on Tone net, which was slightly confusing, but realised that it seems to work fine if I am logged into IK manager at same time- bit weird.
Connected Tonex pedal, which was recognised, and was able to sync and update firmware in a reasonably short time.
Had a bit of confusion on settings for audio, and still do, am a bit cautious here because I have my other interfaces and my Reaper workflow to consider, so still not entirely sure what I need to do with these settings.
I found the link on my page on Tone net for my hardware- which showed the same 2 Asio drivers for download- which went to my DL folder as expected.
Installed both of these, and decided to spend a little time in Tonex software to see how it works-with my Headphones, HD650s.
Very mixed feelings here, as all the tones sounded terrible, something clearly is wrong.
All presets have really bad digital clipping, and I am sure something is wrong with the audio settings on my PC.
Tried rebooting, without pedal attached, and checked a few things in Windows, which is now terrible for audio settings in general, 
Problem still exists in Tonex software, and seems even worse in Amplitube, with feedback loop, via PC speakers.
This is about 3 hours in, so I decided to take a break, and after a while I tried a listen to the pedal on its own, with a different set of headphones, HD280 pro.
I changed a few global settings for input gain, and global volume, and got much better results although the way the presets are arranged makes absolutely no sense, with clean sounds mixed in with very high gain stuff - an absolute mess.
By this time, my tinitus has been triggered, so I gave up, but there are some promising things in there.
There is a terrible buzz present, which cannot be normal, and I checked to see if there was any mention on TGP Tonex forum, and it was mentioned- it goes away when USB cable is plugged in, so I will investigate this further with a different power supply.
Earlier in the day, I had been experimenting with my headphone amp / cab solution, fed by some analogue pedals for tones, and was surprised by the results, very quiet using my Finck telecaster ( Mojo broadcaster bridge, Mojo PAF neck ) which seems so noisy it is unusable in Tonex pedal- unless USB cable is plugged in, seems strange.
Lots to dig into here, I'll try to make my following posts more direct re problems / solutions, but I did find a fair few very nice tones in there, a lot of potential.
Part of the problem, I think, is that the platform has come from a software base, and patches and tones have been added as the platform developed, when it all gets put into a piece of hardware that is trying to do a bit of everything, there will be some inconsistencies, patch levels etc.
Overall, I am happy with it so far, it is going to take a bit of work to get comfortable with it though.
TBC.

rickd2112a

On the subject of buzz when using headphones.

This is a fairly typical problem with these types of unit when using headphones as there is now ground/earth on the power supply so it picks up all manner of buzzing. The DC 9v in, is isolated, it has no earth connection so the unit has no direct connection to earth. It's a well documented 'issue' with Strymon Iridium. So when the Tonex made a huge amount of noise I wasn't overly concerned as I knew the solution.

You can plug the Tonex output into a normal guitar amp that is plugged into the mains but switched off - this gives a direct connection to earth and problem solved.

Or as I did for Iridium, is use another 3-pin mains plug, connect a wire from the plug's earth pin to a circular crimp connector that can slide over a guitar lead plug (1/4"). I then use that on the guitar lead going to the Tonex/Iridium with the mains plug into the mains socket along side the one for the unit's power supply. Again this earths the Tonex/Iridium and stops the buzz and is perfectly safe as you're not connecting anything to the Live or Neutral pins of the plug. Hope that makes sense.

I did find the Tonex had much more buzz than the Iridium, but connecting it to earth solved it.

I agree with the mess of presets. Starting with really high gain presets seems strange. Plus, as I said previously, the mismatch in volumes between presets can really hurt when using headphones.

andy_k

Further messing has left me a bit better off.
I found that loading Tonex software as a plug in helped me to dial in what the problems were with the horrific sound at first.
I think there was a sample rate mismatch somewhere, I record at 24 bit, 48k, and when I switched to 44k for the project- it seemed to fix it-somehow, because later when I loaded a current project running some NAM profiles, at usual 48k, and swapped to a Tonex plugin it still worked fine, bit weird. Possibly related to Reaper?
Managed to download a few Amalgam freebies off Tone net, and saved my project - seems ok.
When I load Tonex standalone, still sounds like ass, so I check settings, options are Windows audio, or Asio, both sound equally bad - but I noticed buffer setting was 480, which is not in the list of usual settings 256, 512 etc, so I changed to 512 , using windows audio and voila-sounds perfect, through laptop speakers.
I then plugged in the pedal, and had a bit of fun swapping some presets around, Amalgam stuff at the end-last 3 banks, and then top 10 favourites from Tone net at banks 35-36, ( top 6 really), overwriting pedals.
Also, I noted the same thing as you did, strangely the default is high gain, drive, clean, per bank (usually ), but it wasn't too much trouble to swap C to A on each bank, which seems to make more sense.
Nice tip re the Buzzz, I'll have a think about it, but will probably try having it on an isolated supply on a Metro board, which should also hopefully fix it, I don't think I will be attaching any wires to plug sockets to fix it anyway.
Next big software update is end of Nov, so gives me plenty of time to learn it - before I have to re-learn it, but I think I am getting somewhere with it - sounds pretty good in the software anyway.
TBC.

Littlejonny

Coming back to ‘Tonex Tips’: mine is this for Tonex One:

Use the software to audition sounds and find 20 you like…favourite them.
Use librarian to dump them onto the hardware unit. 

Close the software and plug the Tonex One into your speaker.
Hold down alt and click foot switch at the same time to enter setup mode.
Turn the active knob to scroll through the patches without knowing what they are.
Choose a sound you like for A, B and Stomp. 

Later, plug it into the software and find out you prefer Ampeg clean sound to Fender, Supro drive sound to Marshall and you’re a secret fan of the Orange OR100.

andy_k

Littlejonny said:

Coming back to ‘Tonex Tips’: mine is this for Tonex One:

Use the software to audition sounds and find 20 you like…favourite them.
Use librarian to dump them onto the hardware unit. 

Close the software and plug the Tonex One into your speaker.
Hold down alt and click foot switch at the same time to enter setup mode.
Turn the active knob to scroll through the patches without knowing what they are.
Choose a sound you like for A, B and Stomp. 

Later, plug it into the software and find out you prefer Ampeg clean sound to Fender, Supro drive sound to Marshall and you’re a secret fan of the Orange OR100.

Nice tip, kind of like the Diceman approach to getting a result.
Curious as to how you are listening to the pedal, I am having good results with my cheap headphone amp into 40 year old Cube 60 watt speaker- perfect room volume at home.
I found a preset- 'Perfect Marshall',  one of the top ten on Tone net, and it is pretty much perfect, in the same bank of 3 as a couple of Friedman models, with increasing gain, so I keep coming back to them.
I have a set of Amalgam freebies in the top 3 banks, and it is pretty clear they are well done, but I think a lot of the stock IK models have a bit of promise too, just quite hard to organise them as they seem to have some very drastic differences in level, and I am not sure exactly how to increase the level-not gain, of each preset yet.
It would be nice if there could be some kind of global 'normalise' function, set to something like -12 db, which is ballpark figure for stuff in a DAW.
I will see if I can post a couple of pics of my set up here, now I have the Tonex pedal mounted on a Metro board, with a vintage Boss V-Wah, and my bluetooth headphone amp, this then gets plugged into any cab, just for home use, and gets rid of the crappy 9v power supply.
I can see a Tonex One on the horizon, once I have the software figured out, the Nov update is going to make it a very useful piece of kit indeed, provided you already have the full versions of Tonex, not so sure I could have managed with the 'free' versions it comes with.
I can imagine there being full boards, just populated with Tonex Ones, if they are capable of doing all the effects as well.
TBC.

Littlejonny

andy_k said:

Littlejonny said:

Coming back to ‘Tonex Tips’: mine is this for Tonex One:

Use the software to audition sounds and find 20 you like…favourite them.
Use librarian to dump them onto the hardware unit. 

Close the software and plug the Tonex One into your speaker.
Hold down alt and click foot switch at the same time to enter setup mode.
Turn the active knob to scroll through the patches without knowing what they are.
Choose a sound you like for A, B and Stomp. 

Later, plug it into the software and find out you prefer Ampeg clean sound to Fender, Supro drive sound to Marshall and you’re a secret fan of the Orange OR100.

Nice tip, kind of like the Diceman approach to getting a result.
Curious as to how you are listening to the pedal, I am having good results with my cheap headphone amp into 40 year old Cube 60 watt speaker- perfect room volume at home.
I found a preset- 'Perfect Marshall',  one of the top ten on Tone net, and it is pretty much perfect, in the same bank of 3 as a couple of Friedman models, with increasing gain, so I keep coming back to them.
I have a set of Amalgam freebies in the top 3 banks, and it is pretty clear they are well done, but I think a lot of the stock IK models have a bit of promise too, just quite hard to organise them as they seem to have some very drastic differences in level, and I am not sure exactly how to increase the level-not gain, of each preset yet.
It would be nice if there could be some kind of global 'normalise' function, set to something like -12 db, which is ballpark figure for stuff in a DAW.
I will see if I can post a couple of pics of my set up here, now I have the Tonex pedal mounted on a Metro board, with a vintage Boss V-Wah, and my bluetooth headphone amp, this then gets plugged into any cab, just for home use, and gets rid of the crappy 9v power supply.
I can see a Tonex One on the horizon, once I have the software figured out, the Nov update is going to make it a very useful piece of kit indeed, provided you already have the full versions of Tonex, not so sure I could have managed with the 'free' versions it comes with.
I can imagine there being full boards, just populated with Tonex Ones, if they are capable of doing all the effects as well.
TBC.

I have both the computer and the Tonex one plugged into a Bose S1 Pro. I roll back the bass and treble on the Bose, which seems to give a flatter sound, closer to what I hear on headphones. 

I agree that the IK presets available on the (free) app are pretty good, and you tweak them to great. You’re right about the patch volumes - I’ve just been turning the volume on each patch to where I want to hear it (working from the actual pedal) and it seems to save that. 

andy_k

More bugs / features to report--
This must catch a few people out, I can't be the only one.
In tone model tab, I have a few folders set up, Favs, Authors etc, and I select one, say 'perfect Marshall'.
Then I tweak the settings a little, but don't decide to save it, then I select another Tone model, say 'Supro'.
THE SETTINGS CARRY OVER TO 'SUPRO'.
I now realise it is because I am in 'tone model' tab.
SO,
I switch to 'presets' tab, and folders I have set up in previous tab are not visible.
I create the same 'Favs' folder in 'presets', and have to select a 'tone model' in 'tone model tab'
then switch to 'preset tab' to then drag in a 'tone model' into a 'preset' folder.
Now, when I save the 'supro' tone model ( preset ) with some increased gain ( save over, with same name )
I can switch between the 'perfect marshall', with gain at 5, to the 'supro' with gain at 8, as desired.
So it seems, a 'tone model' preset, is also a 'preset' preset, both of which can have the same name, and either can be then dragged onto the pedal in librarian tab.
I think I understand now, but this is all happening on a plugin in my DAW, so not sure how it will transpire in the standalone version.
I also need to address some of the massive volume differences between 'presets' in both the software, and the pedal.
I am sure a lot of these sounds have been captured / imported / transferred by different people at different times, both by IK and by people on Tone net, and once they have been gathered into the librarian, in whatever order, it becomes impossible to work with them without further editing of levels, which can be done in a variety of stages, some of which will be affecting the actual 'tone' that has been captured.

Have to remind myself, that changes made in 'tone model' tab on an amp face, will carry over if I select another 'tone model', even if NOT saved into a 'preset' version of that 'tone model'

I think the 'tone model', when selected, should ALWAYS have the settings that are saved within it, not be transferred over from the previous model, onto a new amp fascia. Some of the knobs are pretty difficult to see, so I can easily see why I only just realised this.

I'm not sure where to begin, in a library of at least 1100, and I can maybe understand why people choose to simply buy another 'pack' from a vendor, which then gets thrown into the mix with all the others.
I can see a Tonex One on the horizon, for a couple of reasons, but obviously it is very difficult to actually do any editing with no display, but the simple limitation on how many it holds is appealing to me, as well as the fact it uses USB C, and no power supply when connected to a computer as an interface, needs a well curated selection of sounds in there first.

Jono111

I found the 20 presets on the Tonex one a bit pointless as you needed to remember which of the 20 shades of colour represent which preset. Also not knowing where you were in the 20 was annoying, the color of different presets can be quite similar. 
That pedal is crying out for a numbered display 
 

andy_k

A little further digging, and I am just going to put these things here, in case anybody is having similar frustrations and it might help.
I am noticing that a 'tone model' should really have all its settings at a neutral position- ie 5 on the knobs, as it is just a basic capture of a pedal / amp / cab signal chain, there would be no way of showing these settings in the skin.

A 'preset', on the other hand, is saved with altered settings, and I think this can lead to some confusion because when we compare these things-either on the pedal or in the app, they are not fair comparisons- apples to oranges.

I am seeing it when I scroll through the included 'presets', in both 'preset' and 'tone model' tabs, as they are merged in the browser, whichever is selected.

This level of confusion is on top of the problem of people using different gain stages to create the basic 'tone model', and as I said before, is probably the consequence of packs being added to the 'ecosystem' over time.

Level matching is a common thing in streaming services, so I think a global normalise function could probably be added at some point, fairly easily.
It would be a very useful function, IMO, and it could be completely optional and customisable, and would help make managing a large library a lot less effort.
37,000 ' tone models' is a lot to sort through, and from what I am experiencing, there is a lot of really good stuff on there.
Shame it isn't being presented in a better way.
YMMV.

Littlejonny

Jono111 said:

I found the 20 presets on the Tonex one a bit pointless as you needed to remember which of the 20 shades of colour represent which preset. Also not knowing where you were in the 20 was annoying, the color of different presets can be quite similar. 
That pedal is crying out for a numbered display 
 

I think this is an advantage of sorts - as I explained above - load the sounds in you like and then use your ears to choose them on the pedal.

grungebob

Jesus. 

I was thinking of getting a Tonex but after reading all this work around stuff etc I really can’t be bothered with it. 

I just want to play guitar for an hour or so at night when everyone’s gone to bed. 

I appreciate all the effort you guys have gone into to provide us all insight but it just seems joyless to me , so,  I think I’ll try the nano instead or maybe a Friedman IR D or maybe a ………